This video appeared on “Good Morning America” back in 2008 — warning of the coming climate catastrophe — from which Barack Obama promised to save us. And here we are and how did those prognostications turn out? Yes. we warned you that they were a bunch of loonies, and so they were. Fun to look back and see just how wrong they were.

There is a cult of — future annihilation, the world ending badly, coming catastrophe that has increasingly become more prominent. I suspect it has much to do with the movies: zombie apocalypse, alien invasion, earthquake, fatal disease. If you forbade the movie industry from doing movies about future collapse, what would they make movies about? Possibly they’d have to tell real entertaining stories instead.

In spite of the theme that the most important thing happening in the world yesterday was—the Oscars— viewership was way down. The awards went to movies that no one had seen, and pointedly ignored the really big hits. It was the most political Oscar party in years. But the glitterati of Hollywood can never get enough of red carpets, being photographed and getting awards—which they do with ever increasing frequency.

The 72nd Golden Globes Awards

The 25th Screen Actor Guild (SAG) Awards

The 57th GRAMMIES

The 87th Academy Awards (Oscars)

The 69th Tonys

The People’s Choice Awards

The Kid’s Choice Awards

The Webbys

MTV Movie Awards

Teen Choice Awards

MTV Video Music Awards

The 67th Emmy Awards

Beyond that, there are at least 50 major film festivals, the most notable being Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice and Berlin, but most other major cities have one as well.

Another day, another eruption of educational idiocy. Political correctness or zero tolerance. Mindless principals, afraid that they might be criticized by someone, somewhere, for allowing any indication of possible, potential, imaginary violence to take place in their school, do remarkably silly things to protect themselves and damage little kids.

Alden Steward, age 9, had watched “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies,” and his head was still filled with the movie. He told a classmate that he could make him disappear with a ring forged in Middle Earth’s Mount Doom. He brought his “one ring” to school, put it on a classmate’s head, and said he could make him invisible like Bilbo Baggins.

Kermit Elementary School officials in Texas suspended the 9 year old for making violent threats.

“I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence,” the father wrote. “If he did, I’m sure he’d bring him right back.”

Gosh, I’m not sure that is even as threatening as the little kid who got suspended for eating his pop-tart into a “gun shape.” (Looked more like the State of Idaho to me.)

I have not kept track of all the suspensions of kids for imaginary crimes against their school friends. There are too many. If you cannot distinguish between child’s imaginary play and violence, you are not suitable to be in a position of authority over children. It indicates that if there were an actual emergency, this person could not cope. School Boards should require a modicum of common sense.

Had I been to West Africa treating Ebola patients, I would surely understand the reason that I might be quarantined. I can’t imagine many things worse than having to live with the knowledge that I had caused someone else’s illness or death.

So, faced with being quarantined for 21 days, what could you do about it? Can I assume a laptop, a phone and a TV, a bed, a shower and a bathroom? I could knit a sweater, take a couple of online courses, call friends to chat, watch movies, build a model, read the books I have been wanting to have time to read. I could write a diary of my quarantine, real or imaginary. Most of us complain about not having enough time for the things we want to do, and ordinary life intrudes.

A phone, a laptop and a credit card will get you exactly the materials you need, and the gift of free time gives you the time for study or contemplation. Is that really all bad? Boredom is a choice, not a given.

On the other hand, when members of the military are quarantined on their return, are they quarantined together, when one exposed person could expose the whole group or separately? Has anybody thought that one through?

This picture was posted on Facebook, and many viewers were outraged that at a time when there is so much going on in the world, some idiot hunter was slaughtering, um, peaceful rare animals. If you recognize the face of the man, Steven Spielberg, and the animal, Triceratops, all becomes fairly clear. The director posed with a prop from Jurassic Park. The Daily Caller summed up the rage of some of the commenters:

“That’s Steven Spielberg, director of Jurassic Park!” one user wrote.

“I don’t care who he is he should not have shot that animal,” another responded.

I have not seen Noah, nor do I intend to. Saw the trailers, and Noah as an environmentalist and vegetarian with really bad dialogue left me thinking there were better ways to spend my time.

This summary of, um, “creative interpretation or heretical imagination” — or Noah’s top five environmental intrusions into the biblical textual account convinced me that, much as I like Russell Crowe, I would pass on this one.

The environmental notions of the movie show the extent of the culture wars.

Aronofsky himself sees the movie as an environmentalist sermon of sorts, with anthropogenic global warming as our latest evil to combat. “The water is rising, and we already saw it once,” he commented to CNN on the supposed climate effects predicted by the United Nations. “We are living the second chance that was given to Noah.”

Sounds like a religion to me. The culture wars are getting exceedingly strange.